Deep Cover
by Dogmatix
Summary: Alex Mercer is trying to bring Dana back, and the Assassins may hold the key. Or the Apple, as it were.


**MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR ACII.**

Disclaimer: Do not own Assassin's Creed or Prototype.

Deep Cover

They'd come here to find answers, the four of them. To find the Apple. And they'd succeeded. But now, it was all turning into a nightmare, Desmond's body moving against his will as the Apple turned him into a puppet, a marionette, while his friends stood frozen and helpless, unaware of the danger.

Desmond fought desperately against the alien force controlling his body, moving him inexorably forward. 'The scales must be balanced?'' he thought almost hysterically, Juno's warped words ringing in his head. 'What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?' Why had his hidden blade been extended? Around him, the glowing symbols in the chamber danced and wavered, while Rebecca, Shaun, and Lucy stood as if they were frozen in amber.

One foot pulled forward, then the other, moving him closer to… Lucy. NO! Desmond fought will everything he had, and more, but the Apple pulsed, and his foot moved against all his effort.

"Stop, please!" He cried desperately.

The voice spoke again, but Desmond ignored it, throwing everything he had against the controlling force. But again the Apple pulsed, again the step.

"Cease your struggles!" the voice insisted, sounding almost exasperated.

"No!" Desmond cried out, now face to still face with Lucy, the one who'd saved him from Abstrego, who was so much more than a friend.

One last time, the apple pulsed. The blade flashed, drove home. "It is done," the voice intoned, but Desmond didn't hear, couldn't hear, couldn't- couldn't-!

Together, he and Lucy fell, the red stain blooming large and ugly on Lucy's abdomen. And Desmond's mind just. Shut down.

* * *

><p>Lucy blinked. One second, Desmond had been over by the pedestal, and in the next second, somehow, they were both on the floor, Desmond facing her, and… oh. "Shit!" she cried, hand going to the wound in her abdomen. To close it or not to close it? Fuck it, let it heal, she had bigger problems; Desmond looked <em>wrong<em> somehow. "Desmond. Desmond?" Lucy shook Desmond's shoulder, but he remained unresponsive, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. "Wake up! Desmond!" Still no answer. The Apple lay ignored to one side. The Apple. Had it done this to him? At that instant he'd appeared before her, his eyes… they'd looked so… stricken? Could he have shut down due to mental stress?

"Lucy?" "Desmond!" The shouts came simultaneously. Lucy's head snapped up. Rebecca and Shaun stood, shocked and uncomprehending. Reaching out, Lucy snagged the damn Apple and put it into a pocket.

Lucy lifted Desmond as if he weighed no more than a feather and started to run. "We have to get him back in the Animus!"

* * *

><p>The room was dim, only a single light on the table breaking the darkness. Not that it bothered Lucy.<p>

Shaun sat opposite the table from her, and Rebecca paced restlessly back and forth behind him. "What are you?" Shaun started bluntly.

Damn. They'd seen too much. "What do you mean?" Lucy asked, trying to sidestep.

"Don't give me that, I saw that wound. What. Are. You?"

Try to pass it off as a fleshwound? They couldn't possibly know how deep the blade had gone.. but they'd seen the pool of blood before she'd stopped the flow, and Rebecca at least knew how to gauge injuries. Fuck it all to hell. Now what?

"Look," Lucy tried, "does it matter? Haven't I proven myself trustworthy? I know it's strange, but I'm still one of you, I'm still Lucy."

"But are you?" Rebecca asked, sounding frustrated. "Are you really?"

"Oh come on, Rebecca, It's _me_, Lucy. We've known each other since-"

"No!" Rebecca stomped over to the table and smacked her palms down on it, leaning past Shaun. "No that's just _it_. You're, you're almost Lucy but. At first I just thought I was being crazy, I mean, I hadn't seen you for years, and people change and, and you do still know everything you should and- but it's not you. It's _almost_ you, like some kind of fucked up Stepford wife, but. You've done things the real Lucy never would, I mean. You're _nicer_ than she was.

Lucy just gaped, disbelieving.

Rebecca pushed on. "You actually _like_ Desmond. Hell, you like us! You've always been so driven and focused, it was like living with a fucking laser, and now you actually care about us? We're friends?" Rebecca shook her head. "Lucy was picked for an undercover operation with Abstrego for a reason. You're not Lucy." And she stood back, hands on her hips, stance determined.

"I'm too 'nice'?" Lucy asked disbelievingly. "I fucked up by being too 'nice'?"

Rebecca just stared accusingly.

"Who are you," Shaun asked again. "Why are you imitating Lucy Stillman? And what do you want?"

Lucy let her head drop. Damn. Damn damn damn. Wait, no, think it through. They hadn't handed her over to the Assassins, so either they knew how crazy they'd sound, or they were willing to give her a chance.

"I want the Shroud." Lucy looked up. "I want to use the Shroud. Once. That's all."

Rebecca and Shaun looked at each other uncertainly. "The Shroud? But we don't even know where it is," Rebecca said.

"It exists," Lucy said flatly, glaring at them defiantly. "I'm going to find it. With or without your help."

"Okay, that's one question down," Shaun frowned, apparently not sure what to make of her answer.

The seconds dragged by. Five. Ten. At last, Lucy glanced down, then looked back up, and suddenly, it wasn't Lucy looking out at them anymore.

Shaun sat back with a hiss, and Rebecca actually took a step back. 'Lucy' knew his entire bodylanguage had changed, even if he still looked like Lucy Stillman.

"I'm impersonating Lucy by chance. An accident, you could say."

"Where is she now?" Rebecca stepped forward again.

"Dead."

"You-" Rebecca choked, hands fisting.

"I didn't kill her," 'Lucy' said, irritated, then revised his answer. "Well, no, I did, but she was dying when I got to her."

Hostile disbelief.

Well this was going well. "You guys remember the Manhattan Incident, right?"

Rebecca nodded warily. "The zombie outbreak a few years ago? Of course. So?"

"Lucy was there."

"Yeah, yeah she was." Rebecca frowned.

"Turns out even a zombie apocalypse doesn't slow the Templars down. Lucy was attacked by a group of them. I don't think they knew who she was exactly, but they knew she was an Assassin. I saw her fight them. She killed them all, but she was wounded in the process. Mortally wounded."

Shaun was shaking his head. "Alright, say we believe that. It still doesn't explain your knowledge of Assassins, or how you look like Lucy."

"Rebecca, you follow the forums for that sort of stuff – what were some of the more outrageous stories floating around about ZEUS?"

"ZEUS? The terrorist that started the whole thing? Uh. That he could fly, that he was a zombie himself, that he was some kind of, of shapeshifting master of disguise, that he shot fire out of his eyes, stuff like that. What does that have to do with anything?"

'Lucy' grimaced. "Well, except for the shooting fire out of my eyes," Alex let his biomass writhe and coil, settling back into his old form, from boots and jeans to his black leather jacket over a dirty grey hoodie shadowing his sickly pale face, "that's pretty much spot on," he finished, voice harsh and menacing once more.

Frozen silence shattered into shouts as the Assassin and the scholar pulled out a gun and backed up, respectively.

"This is insane," Shaun croaked. Alex could hear his frantic heartbeat all the way from the table.

"More insane than aliens creating mankind?" Which, honestly, had amused the man-made virus to no end. "More insane than the Apple of Eden?"

Alex shook his head. "As for how I know stuff, being a freak comes with some advantages. I eat people, consume them. Or, I can. I've been trying to cut back," sarcastic, but true. "And when I do, I get their memories. That's how I found out about the Apple, and knew about Abstrego and the Assassins."

"You, you _ate_ Lucy?" Rebecca asked in a voice that almost broke, but the gun never wavered.

"She was dying, bleeding out. No way she'd have lasted another twenty seconds, never mind getting her to the closest hospital. She tried to tell me something, a message for her superiors. She thought I was an Assassin because of this," he tugged at his hoodie. "She was pretty desperate about it, but couldn't talk around the blood. When she fell unconscious," Alex shrugged, "I was curious." And hungry, but no reason to traumatize Rebecca further.

"You monster," Rebecca breathed, disgust painted wide and loud on her features.

Alex shrugged again, keeping his face frozen. He'd heard it a thousand times. This was the first time from Rebecca though.

"Why do you want to use the Shroud?" Shaun asked warily.

Alex thought it over. It wasn't clear if they'd give him a chance, or even believe him. He knew he was clutching at straws.

"Because, my sister Dana needs it," he admitted reluctantly, giving them enough information for context, and because Rebecca would no doubt be scouring the internet to verify as much of his story as she could. Provided she didn't decide to just try shooting him first. So, a rival 'terrorist', the kidnap, the recovery…. the coma.

He was gambling it all on their goodwill. For Dana, he'd do it a dozen times over. He owed her that, and more.

FIN

Edit: Added separation bars


End file.
